[Astro] Turf Wars Uncovered in New Undercover Documentary

[Astro] Turf Wars Uncovered in New Undercover Documentary

In his recently released documentary, [astro] Turf Wars, Australian filmmaker Taki Oldham goes undercover to try and answer the question: “Just how real are the roots of the tea party’s supposed grassroots uprising.”

Oldham, examines the role corporate-funded grassroots groups (known as ‘astroturf’) have played in the recent health-care and climate debates and their central role in the tea party movement.

Here’s the very amusing trailer:

The film singles out free-market ‘grassroots’ groups FreedomWorks and Americans For Prosperity (AFP), whose million-plus memberships helped create the Tea Party movement and led the uprising against the Democrats reform agenda.

While AFP have been getting a lot of press lately for their ties to billionaire oil man David Koch, (Astro) Turf Wars take this to a whole new level. Of particular note are the revelations that in a previous incarnation both AFP and FreedomWorks were paid by tobacco companies to kill the Clinton healthcare reforms in 1994, mobilizing their grassroots army to fight a ‘government takeover’ and ‘socialized medicine.’

Oldham’s undercover work documents how Tea Party goers are being recruited into this libertarian fight for ‘freedom’ seemingly without any understanding of who is bankrolling the campaign.

Another notable appearance is by Huffington contributor Wendell Potter, a former head of PR for the health insurance providers Cigna and Humana who blows the whistle on the health insurance industry’s use of astroturfing to fool and manipulate citizens.

Democracy is utterly dependent upon an electorate that is accurately informed. In promoting climate change denial (and often denying their responsibility for doing so) industry has done more than endanger the environment. It has undermined democracy.

There is a vast difference between putting forth a point of view, honestly held, and intentionally sowing the seeds of confusion. Free speech does not include the right to deceive. Deception is not a point of view. And the right to disagree does not include a right to intentionally subvert the public awareness.